Broad Strokes: The National Museum of Women in the Arts' Blog

The National Museum of Women in the Arts was selected as one of 12 nonprofit organizations to compete in Avon’s 12 Days For Good: The Online Holiday Charity Shopping Event.  Not only will NMWA receive 20% of your purchase total as a cash donation, but we’re also in the running for a 12% bonus of the money raised by all 12 charities combined.  The charity competition starts Friday, November 27th, and ends Tuesday, December 8th.

You can shop the full range of Avon’s product line including:  home decor, fashion, jewelry, kids, bath, body, and beauty products.  Also, check out the “Really Good Gifts” list that you can download at 12daysforgood.org to help guide you to some of the best gifts to give this season.  Orders totaling $30 or more will receive free shipping.

Here’s how it works:

1. Visit 12daysforgood.org.  Click on the “Shop for the National Museum of Women in the Arts” link to open a special dedicated shopping page in Avon’s Online Store.

2. Click the “Shop my online event” button

3. Complete your purchase online.

Shopping, saving, and doing good couldn’t be easier this holiday season.  Thanks for your support!

About the Author: Susan Cuff is NMWA’s Member Services Associate.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Indian, Indio, Indigenous, 1992. Oil and collage on canvas, 60 x 100 in. (diptych). National Museum of Women in the Arts.

“My art, my life experience, and my tribal ties are totally enmeshed. I go from one community with messages to the other, and I try to enlighten people.”

Even in her earliest memories, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith wanted to be an artist. Her father, an amateur artist, drew pictures of animals for his daughter to entertain her. She grew up on the Flathead Reservation in southwestern Montana, and developed an affinity for animals and nature that has informed her work throughout her life. Yet she was told as a teenager that women could not be artists, that it was a man’s pursuit – but she has proved the naysayers wrong by earning her MA from the University of New Mexico and becoming a successful artist who has exhibited since the 1970s. She, like other Native American artists of her generation, has produced politically and environmentally conscious art throughout her career.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Four Directions, 1994. Lithograph with linocut collage, 44 1/2 x 30 in. National Museum of Women in the Arts.

“Once my paintings get started and they start rolling they take on a life of their own, and often that’s the way things take place. They come from some mysterious place within.”

Although they address large-scale issues, Smith’s paintings are deeply personal. For example, Indian, Indio, Indigenous, a work Smith calls one of her “narrative landscapes,” is a protest against destruction of the environment and poor treatment of Native Americans. She draws a visual and thematic correlation between the two with use of a unifying color palette and symbols of Native American life, such as use of her reservation’s newspaper, Char-Koosta. Stark line-drawings mingle with text, including the words “It takes hard work to keep racism alive.” Despite containing numerous symbols, the meaning of the work is clear, and comes from her own identity as Native American.

“I think of my work as an inhabited landscape, never static or empty. Euro-Americans see broad expanses of land as vast, empty spaces. Indian people see all land as a living entity. The wind ruffles; ants crawl; a rabbit burrows. I’ve been working with that idea for probably twenty years now.”

Smith’s work comes alive, and her influences are far reaching. She was trained as an abstract expressionist, and often employs similar color palettes and collage techniques. Her view of landscape is quite different from a conventional one, offering viewers a fresh outlook on nature and life as an American. Despite her often sobering message, Smith seems to prefer humor in her work: “I think people often can hear a message with humor much easier than with bitterness.”

NMWA is open on Black Friday! Come see Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and lots of other artists for a post-Turkey art day.

A few weeks ago, I visited the Pompidou in Paris to see elles@centrepompidou, the major yearlong exhibition of women artists and the largest show of contemporary works by women to date. The exhibition, which runs through May 2010, highlights five hundred works by more then two hundred women artists from the twentieth century to today. Elles is drawn from the museum’s fifty thousand works—one of the world’s largest modern and contemporary art collections; only 17% of the artist represented are women. The Pompidou has dedicated 8,000 m2 (nearly half its floor space) to the show. Curated by Camille Morineau, elles includes reflections from artists, writers, philosophers, and historians; an interactive Web site; and an extensive catalogue. Morineau admits that this show would not have been possible five years ago because the Pompidou simply did not have enough works by women.

The breadth of the exhibition is staggering; it includes all the big names—Joan Mitchell, Louise Bourgeois, Diane Arbus, and Frida Kahlo—but also works by important contemporary artists such as Ghada Amer, Valérie Belin, and Pipilotti Rist. The show is divided into themes—the body, story-telling, space, relationships—that are discussed through paintings, drawings, sculptures, performances, film, installation, text, prints, photographs, furniture, and even architectural models. Despite the varied backgrounds and time periods of the artists, the strength of the women reverberates throughout each room. These women defied the odds to fulfill their passion for art.

The "Wordworks" section includes works by Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer.

Videos that provoke gut reactions like Carolee Schneeman’s Meat Joy balance the slow, contemplative videos of Eija-Liisa Ahtila. Sandy Skoglund’s fantastical photograph of radioactive cats overtaking a colorless kitchen was juxtaposed with Martha Rolser’s video Semiotics of the Kitchen, which was featured in NMWA’s WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution in 2007. My favorite room revolved around grids: Hungarian artist Vera Molnar started experimenting with computers in the 1960s and created intricate computer-generated geometric forms; Tara Donovan made a cube out of interlocking toothpicks; minimalist artist Agnes Martin constructed methodical grids of penciled lines; and Valérie Jouve photographed the seemingly endless rows of balconies and windows of an apartment building.

On the second floor of gallery space were additional works from the collection from 1906 to 1960. Important paintings by women, including Suzanne Valadon, Sonia Delauney, and Natalia Gontcharova, were interspersed with work by men to contextualize their role in the art world. Outside the Pompidou is Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely’s kinetic Stravinsky Fountain. This spring, four beautiful sculptures by Saint Phalle will be installed outside of NMWA.

I also took a short trip to the Musée de l’Orangerie on the corner of the Louvre’s Jardin des Tuileries, which featured the impressive modernist collection of Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume. Among the Picassos, Matisses, and Renoirs, was a small gallery dedicated to French artist Marie Laurencin—one of few women cubist painters—who is known for her delicate paintings of women and children in airy pastel colors. It was exciting to see many of the women artists shown at NMWA being celebrated around the world.

–Vivian Djen is managing editor at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

When visitors arrive at NMWA, some of the first people they encounter are the welcoming and knowledgeable docents at the Information Desk. From staffing the desk and guiding visitors on tours to engaging students through special programs and outreach, our docents touch thousands of lives every year. As one of our long-time docents commented, “I love being a docent at NMWA because I have the wonderful opportunity to meet visitors from around the globe and have a dialogue with them (sometimes in their native language) as we explore the incredible contributions that women have made to the arts through the ages.”

NMWA’s docent core is a diverse group that includes college students, former diplomats, nurses, teachers (current and former), business leaders and librarians. Some docents are Washington, D.C., natives while others were born or have lived in countries thousands of miles from 1250 New York Avenue. As a result, NMWA can offer you a tour in Arabic, Farsi, French and Spanish.

Becoming a docent involves an application and interview process followed by about six months of training. Training includes learning about artists and works in the collection, which spans from the Renaissance to the present, but a major component of the process is learning to engage visitors of all ages and backgrounds. Docents use a variety of techniques to encourage visitors to experience art in a meaningful and personal way. Docents also learn how to lead thematic Girl Scout and student tours and work with staff on special programs such as Role Model Workshops, in which contemporary artists lead teenage participants in creating works of art. Truly, training is a time commitment but current docent candidates find it worthwhile. Says one, “After the office, the traffic, the cold…we get to stand in front of 16^th century paintings and talk about sumptuary laws, and how Anguissola’s first husband was killed by pirates…I can never wait for Monday night!”

The next time you are at NMWA, make sure to stop by the Information Desk. Whether you’re looking for Renaissance art, restaurant recommendations or the restroom, our friendly docents are happy to help make your visit informative and fun. A twenty-three year veteran of the docent corps perhaps sums it up best, “It’s a pleasure being surrounded by such talent and sharing the works of art with others!”

Interested in volunteering with NMWA? Go to www.nmwa.org and complete a volunteer application. Elizabeth Keaney is the Assistant Educator at NMWA.